A little dark and eventually violent, this is a story that sheds light on life in Turkey during the 1980s. Fatma is by then a dowager clinging to memories and old ways. She seems too have always been unhappy. We also hear from the perspective of three of her grandchildren, her servant who is her deceased husband’s bastard and his brother’s son, a disaffected young man, also her quasi grandchild. None of the( young adult) children realize there connections and their tortured relationship plays out within the larger context of a rebellious uprising. It was fascinating to learn of the world as known by these people, but it was difficult to like any but Reced, the bastard servant.